Ocean Wave Fountains
at Future Ocean Side
Hotels
By Harry Valentine
Victoria & Alfred Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa
The natural world offers many
spectacular phenomena that
people find attractive - one such
phenomenon is the wave-driven
waterspout that occurs along some
rocky coast lines where a submerged
cave has an above water exit.
Wind driven waves push water into
the submerged cave entrance to
produce an upward blast of water
in the form of a fountain. The
occurrence of underwater caves
led Irish researchers to develop a
wave powered energy conversion
technology where a rush of seawater
enters a submerged horizontal pipe
that curves upward at the coast to
produce water that rises and falls
58 ILHA
inside the pipe.
An Old Technology
A variation of that technology
could produce water fountains in
the seawater just off the coast from
seaside hotels. Large ponds of water
with fountains tend to enhance the
attractiveness and ambiance of areas
that seek to attract visitors and
tourists. At some locations, there
may be scope to adapt the old and
proven venturi pump technology to
convert the energy of ocean waves to
produce upward spraying fountains
of seawater. An array of fountains
could fascinate visitors or entertain
them, perhaps providing a calm and
relaxing ambiance to enhance the
atmosphere at an ocean-side hotel.
Venturi pumps usually use just a small
high-speed jet of water to pump a
much larger volume of water uphill at
lower speed, the result of the design
of the duct that surrounds the fast
water jet. Many pump designs are
reversible, that is, pushing water into
the pump exit can make it operate
as an engine or produce a fast jet
of water as would be the case of a
modified venturi pump adapted to
operate in coastal ocean waves. It has
free from moving or rotating parts
and may use pontoons to float near
the water surface.